Another busy month has gone by and I hope to find everyone happy and healthy. My month was full of wonderful experiences. Balloons Across America gave me the opportunity to give a little back to the community. Thanks Jeff. I worked with Paul Balanger and company for a street festival. He is an amazing talent. If you ever get the chance to work with other artists, do so. It can give you many insights as to how others handle our day-to-day challenges and are a learning experience.
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| Costume by Michael Lynn |
This month we will look into the creation of balloon costumes. Costumes are a great way to entertain with balloons. They can be elaborate in nature or very simple depending on the situation. Balloon costumes create an opportunity to interact with the public. Whole routines can be built around the creation of the costume or they can be used to dress up characters for a story. Some artists create parts of the costume in advance while others create the entire thing on the spot. This depends entirely on the artist. Extremely detailed costumes could be made by a group of artists working together in a short period of time. Any way you choose to present balloon costumes, they can be the hit of the show!
A balloon costume is a set of sculptures that change the recipient into a character. The artist can change his subject into anything that he can imagine. He can make his subject into a dragon, cowboy, fisherman, knight, fireman, helicopter pilot, princess, racecar driver, angel, butterfly, tree, clown, wizard, crane, robot, anything you can imagine.
Let us go through the process of creating a costume. For our example we will create a pirate. What accessories are associated with a pirate? We will start with the most basic ones. A sword, a parrot, and a hat. Everyone knows how to make a sword, but can we make it look more like a pirate's cutlass? What type of hat are we going to make our pirate? How are we going to attach the parrot to the shoulder? These are questions that each of us can answer in our own way. There are other things that we generally associate with a pirate. Pirates usually have flintlock pistols, treasure chests, wooden legs, hooks, and eye patches (I wouldn't make an eye patch myself as I don't want to put any balloons over the eyes or ears.) We could go further and make a pair of pirate britches or earrings. How elaborate we want our costume depends each individual's style of performance and available time. We can make a quick pirate by creating a one-balloon sword (260Q), a two-balloon parrot (321Q and 260Q double pinch twisting the feet to attach to the shoulder), and a two-balloon hat (2-260Qs). This is enough to have everyone know that it is a pirate.
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| Costume by Peter Meurer |
We could create a quick fisherman by making a fishing pole and a baseball style fishing hat. We can also add a boat worn around the body with a motor on back and oars. Learn to make a set of wings and you can create butterflies, dragonflies, and angels (don't forget the halo and harp). We could expand our set of costumes to include historical characters and objects. Wigs can be made from 260Qs that would allow us to make many of the famous early Americans. Franklin could have a kite, Washington could be crossing the Delaware River, and Paul Revere could be on his famous ride atop his trusty stallion.
There are an unlimited number of costumes that can be created. I hope that each of you will share your creative ideas though the photo-page here at Balloonhq.
Best of luck,
Patrick Brown